Ouch...

The crowds were up last year during the regular season and down during the play-offs. How does that fit with your post above?

Pre season I couldnt look past either Leeds or Wire to win both major trophies. Wire are quality and have that all important stability in their squad and Leeds back line looks frightening. However youve got to give credit to Anderson. Hes got rid of the players that were alleged to be causing problems, bought wisely and bought quality players. If they stay fit and healthy the Giants should be up there pushing for the top 4. The squad looked to have a lot of grunt and more importantly that cohesion and togetherness. Was very impressed with Hudds last night. And whos that Fielden lad. Looks a real prospect

This may be so, but have Wigan learnt the lessons of recent SL seasons?

That's fantastic!

The crowds in the regular season were up last time and so the RFL and SL are very lucky that most of the fans do not see the regular season as irrelevant as it really is.

The RFL have to be very careful not to undermine the league as a competition as it pays the bills for most clubs. The clubs have to be careful as well. If it became obvious they didn't give a toss fans [iwould[/i stop going.

I think one way that could help is if the next time whoever finish first also wins the GF a great deal is made of it rather than the perverse situation we have now where you get more browney points for being rubbish for half a season, finishing 5th and winning the GF. Finish top and winning the GF should be considered a higher achievement and be marketed as such.

As a regular fan, (maybe not to the glory hunters) in my opinion Wigan's last 3 seasons (1 Grand Final win, 1 Challenge cup win, league placings of 1,2,1) are preferable to Leeds' (2 Grand Final wins, 1 World club challenge, league placings of 4,5,5).

Certainly Wigan have lessons to learn, as have Leeds (1 Challenge cup win in over 30 years) and Wire (last champs in 1955).

I watched Mrs Browns Boys Saturday night & P1553d myself laughing!
I'd heard a few people at work say that it was very funny but got to be honest it was funnier than expected!
That Perry and Wello were F-ing Hilarious!

As a Leeds fan since the 80's we'll have to differ over this. I would much rather be the Champions twice and the World Club Champions once over being the Champions once, the Challenge Cup winners once and the league leaders once.

It's a shame we haven't won the Challenge Cup since 1999, but being crowned the SL Champions 6 times in 9 years helps to alleviate the disapointment! (We're not greedy. It wouldn't be fair if we won everything.

)

Edited

And I think you missed the point he was making by saying finishing 1st 2nd 1st in the league over the last 3 years compared to 4th 5th 5th added to the trophy haul means in some peoples opinions Wigans record over the last 3 years is more preferable as their league position shows they've valued consistancy etc in the league over performing well in certain "One off" games (obviously not Wembley

) and personally I think he has a bit of a point.

My opinion is that the Play off strcuture needs to be changed to make finishing Higher in the league more profitable come play off time. i.e. the old Top5 or Top 6 play off with added advantage to those finishing 1&2 and busting a gut to do so.
I however completely undersatand that if the play offs were structured different that doesnt mean that Leeds wouldn't have won. They could very well have altered their perspective of the season and adapted to those rules and still won it.
To do this I think they would have had to win more league games and at least attained a top 3 position and IMO this would lead to more meaningful competitive games throughout the season to enable teams to do so.

I for one would not like my team to show the same form as Leeds regular seasons have for the last 3 seasons or so and the go on to win the GF. Mainly beacuse I dont belive long term it's condusive to long term success of the game as a whole.

I'd take Leeds' last three seasons over ours. WCC>League>CC>beaten finalists>Minor premiership

Oh stop spoiling the fun

I didn't miss his point. I just meant that the final position in the league that matters to me is finishing first. I would rather finish 5th and win the Grand Final than finish 1st and not win it.

Consequently, I would rather finish 1st and not win the grand final than finish 5th and not win the grand final.

Personally, I am happy with the current play off structure and I would be overjoyed if some team actually managed to win it from 8th. Even if that means they beat Leeds to do it.

The reason is that for this to be possible, we will have reached a point where all top 8 teams are of a similar quality.

See I think the opposite, if more clubs were equal then even more reason not to have a playoff because any team can beat the other on their day. The league sorts the men from the boys

If the same thing happens again this season with the likes of Leeds, or anyone else, being crowned unworthy Champions; I think your words will be even more relevant, and the damage to the game will be made even more apparent next year.

Because Widnes replaced Crusaders and because Saints were back in St Helens

At one time Leeds would have been 'just a good cup team' now they are trying to argue they are one of the greatest teams ever!
People pour scorn on Wigan 80s/90s dominance but Wigan had to finish top every single year producing every single week not finish 2nd, or even more hilariously 5th, win 2 or 3 hard games by a few points and be declared champions.
The Challenge Cup proved just could deliver in the one off big games and the league championship proved you could do it week in week out consistently for 9 months.

Now the playoffs make the Championship just Sky's version of the Challenge Cup

Well, as a fan who saw his team frequently hammered by Wigan, I've not know anyone who's poured scorn over the Wigan team of the late 80's / early 90's. The Wigan team of those day's was phenominal & I wish Leeds had played half that well. However, that was then and this is now. All because Wigan were great then, doesn't stop Leeds from being great now. Arguing as to one team being better than the other is as daft as arguing over who has the hardest dad. They're never going to fight (Compete) so why not agree they are both great teams and leave it at that.

Having said that, during this "unprecedented" period of Leeds success their average home league gates have fallen by over 2000 (17043 - 1494icon_cool.gif since 2008, and Wigan's have increased from 14505 - 16043 over the same period. So someone somewhere must be unhappy with poor league form / happy with consistent league form.

Earlier in the thread I mentioned Django may have. "Missed the point".

"I for one would not like my team to show the same form as Leeds regular seasons have for the last 3 seasons or so and the go on to win the GF. Mainly beacuse I dont belive long term it's condusive to long term success of the game as a whole."

I couldn't quite word what I meant correctly, I think you've summed it up just about right!

But let's not worry about excellence week in week out shall we.
Lets make the game "competitive" (bear in mind as I said to my saints mate in oz08' we could get a game up outside of this pub now and it could be competitive, but it wouldn't mean it would be any good!)

Lets structure the play offs in a way were we can get more games in to help the finances, good job really as it covers the dwindling play off attendances as well.

Davao has made some rather good points regarding someone somewhere best care about the weekly rounds as without them there will one day be no play offs.

I'd put forward that I'm in total agreement and despite what seems like a lot of fans concerns over many issues with the game, rather than get down about it I'd rather look forward to what will be a very interesting game on Friday.
I can't understand why anyone wouldn't be excited about it?

...either that or some people are suffering under the worst recession for years and can't afford to go and would rather pay the mortgage/rent/put food on the table than attend the game.

Whatever the real reason is we can only speculate (Until someone actually goes out and asks those who have stopped attending.) As a Leeds fan from the 80's I have perhaps become so acclimatised to lousy results that I don't actually care about the league placing. The things I care about are the WCC, the League Leaders Shield, the Challenge Cup and the Super League Championship. In that asscending order.

27 games of irrelevance, why should anyone bother with the game at all? Just turn up for a few finals and the odd game at Easter. Seems at odds with spending a lot of time posting on here though.

Wigan, a recession-free zone!

Just two points. Firstly, if the 27 rounds were trully an irrelevance, then you would be able to win the Grand Final after losing all 27. If you can accept that this is not possible, then you are acknowledgeing that the rounds are actually relevant.



Secondly, as a long time Leeds fan, welcome to my world. I spent years supporting my time with no hope of coming top due to Wigan!



EDIT:
I've just re-read your post & I believe you may have misunderstood me. I am not saying the weekly rounds are irrelevant, I'm just saying that winning the silverware is MORE relevant. I'm also pointing out that I'm used to my team not finishing high in the league as I have been conditioned by the performance of Leeds in the 80's & 90's when we won sod-all! (For the past decade I keep expecting to wake up and discover that I actually dreamt Leeds winning all of these titles!

)

The capacity at Headingley up until this season has been reduced during that time for safefty reasons.